Operation Barbarossa

His code name for the invasion was “Operation Barbarossa,” after the great twelfth-century tactician and emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who unified many European kingdoms under German rule as leader of the Holy Roman Empire.

Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa in June of 1941.

Although the invasion was supposed to have begun in May, a wet spring and the need to send German troops to Yugoslavia in the face of a coup there meant that Operation Barbarossa—the invasion of the Soviet Union—was delayed until late June.

The last time Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities faced such a brutal military aggression was in the early hours of June 22, 1941, when Hitler launched his Soviet invasion, Operation Barbarossa.

During World War II, the marshes posed a challenge to German forces invading during Operation Barbarossa.